Minneapolis landlord opens homeless camps in his parking lots in defiance of city

At the risk of angering the city and his neighbors, Minneapolis developer and landlord Hamoudi Sabri last week opened a private homeless encampment in the parking lot of a long-vacant building he owns on E. Lake Street. About 20 people have moved in.

Sabri said he plans to open a second encampment in the North Loop on the same site where he had tried to operate a large encampment four years ago. Police eventually closed the site in midwinter in the wake of overdoses, propane tank fires and heaping garbage.

Sabri said he will try again because he’s fed up with how the city’s homeless dispersal tactics have driven people struggling with mental illness and addiction from one hideaway to another.

Homeless people end up breaking into his properties anyway, he said, so he would rather invite them to live in a place with portable toilets, garbage pickup and a form of management, where health and housing outreach workers could easily find them.

“I told the police, these guys, they’re exhausted,” Sabri said. “These guys are spilling around. So they need a place to stay, so I’d rather have them be in here, in one place, than have them every place.”

On Friday morning, when police tried to clear the parking lot encampment at 2716 E. Lake St., most occupants broke down their tents and fled into the surrounding neighborhood.

Then Sabri arrived to intervene. In an encounter he recorded and showed to the Minnesota Star Tribune, he demanded officers leave the campers alone. Police eventually left without forcing everyone to pack up.

Enrique Velazquez , the city’s regulatory services director, told Sabri on Friday that by ordinance, no tent may be used as a dwelling “anywhere in the city of Minneapolis.”

“It’s a tough situation for sure,” Velazquez said in an interview. “The (city’s) Homeless Response Team has been to that site a few times already. They have provided some referrals with individuals that are interested in moving into shelter. We’ve made the county and their providers aware.

“But for all intents purposes, it’s not allowed. And even if a property owner does want people to go to a specific site so that they do not target or do damage, if you will, at any other locations, it’s still not something that as a city or as an enterprise, we’re in a position to allow.”

Bruce Axelrod, who lives in an apartment near the Lake Street site, said he felt disconcerted as he walked by the new encampment on Friday morning.

“I and other of my neighbors ... are concerned and worried if we are in for another round of mayhem,” he said in an email to the Star Tribune.

“I know the situation is very complex and multilayered on so many levels, of not enough resources, housing, treatment. ... For now, I keep our community in prayers.”

In January, Police Chief Brian O’Hara directed officers to remove tents from public property in response to 911 calls for service.

Dani Labatte said the city’s new approach has forced her to move to different spots throughout south Minneapolis about half a dozen times since the start of the year. At one point, she said, she and her partner got into an apartment but were soon evicted for letting homeless friends in to use the shower.

Now Labatte is back on the street, waiting for a housing placement.

“I can’t understand — if you have your own property, it’s your property, you pay taxes on it,“ she said, ”Why can’t you do what you want with your own property?”

She had just moved into Sabri’s Lake Street refuge on Thursday, but on Friday, police arrived and her tent was lying in a heap on the hot asphalt. She constructed a small blanket fort for her dog.

“It’s (Sabri’s) choice to allow us to come here,” Labette said. “As long as we follow what he sets in place for rules, and we accommodate them, he’s accommodating us with a place to live until we get housing.

“But in the meantime, I mean, where else can anybody go?”

Members of the Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), whose office overlooks the parking lot, were on the scene Friday morning, offering water and other supplies.

“This is literally our our backyard; this is literally our community,” said Jaimi Salone, captain of the Longfellow Cell of the DSA’s Street Corps Working Group. “And the fact that we have the opportunities to show up for them is the most important thing.”

Another Lake Street fixture, Maria Zavala Garcia of Let Everyone Advance with Dignity, pulled into the parking lot when she saw police there and spent the morning handing out clothes, snacks and naloxone, the opioid-overdose antidote nasal spray.

She also signed people up for her organization’s prison diversion program for individuals whose antisocial behaviors stem from mental illness, drug use and extreme poverty.

Sabri has appointed a homeless man, Aeron Bush, to be camp leader. Entrusted with the responsibilities of keeping the peace and the property clean, Bush is supposed to hold up the campers’ end of the bargain and liaison with area businesses.

Security guards from the nearby Aldi negotiated with Bush and Sabri on Friday. Sabri explained that the campers had his permission to be there but that Aldi should contact him if the guards had problems. Some homeless people may react poorly to uniformed security, so it would be better for Bush to relay any complaints, they said.

Bush, for his part, is clear-eyed about the stakes: Should the camp grow out of control and inflame neighbors, closure would be inevitable.

“I know that there’s a school down the block, so I’m trying to keep it clean and presentable, so that kids don’t see what they’re not supposed to see, and the public don’t have a bad eye on us,” he said.

“I’m no dummy, and my motto is always defuse before escalating.”

Bush, who has been in prison for 29 of his 50 years of life, acknowledged he has diagnosed bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress. He said he also has an inability to abide authority figures — all of which make it difficult for him to live in an emergency congregant shelter.

Bush has been on multiple lists for subsidized housing since he last left prison in February. He said he’s staying at the E. Lake Street encampment because Sabri is allowing him to.

By midday Friday, others started trickling back in.

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